in the $400 - $500 dollar range, look at Best Buy's selection of Samsung and Toshiba laptops with the i3 processor. A lot of people are surprised to see second and third gen i3 processors, coupled with larger laptops, for those prices.
I got my Toshiba Satellite C675-S7106 for $400 this spring. It has 500 gigs storage, 4 gigs RAM (sorry, can't upgrade that), a second gen i3, HD 17.3" screen, numpad on the keyboard, 64 bit Windows 7. And Best Buy will always throw in six months of Kaspersky for you. The current models also include hdmi out. I wish I had waited one month for that, but I didn't know.
Even if you don't want to buy from Best Buy, I'd still recommend looking at those. If you like the laptops, but not Best Buy, I'm sure somebody will honor their prices if you need.